During the 2010/2011 NHL season, Christian Ehrhoff played defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks, wearing number 5. His salary for the time he spent on the ice that season was reportedly $3,400,000. The total team salary for the Vancouver Canucks was reportedly $70,975,000, so his salary was about 4.8% of the team's total reported payroll. The median salary for a player on the Vancouver Canucks was $2,250,000. The average salary was $2,729,807. During the 79 games that he played that season, he scored 14 goals and had 36 assists - a total of 50 points. If we divide his reported salary by the number of games played, we find he earned $43,037.97 per game played. Christian Ehrhoff had a plus/minus of 19, 52 PIM (penalties in minutes), 6 PP (power play goals), 0 SH (short-handed goals), 3 GWG (game winning goals), and took 209 shots. He had a shooting percentage in the 2010/2011 season of 6.70%. If we want to evaluate his performance strictly on offense, we can divide his salary by the number of goals scored, as well as by the number of points (goals plus assists). His salary per goal scored was $242,857 and his salary per point was $68,000.

But then, there are taxes. Each hockey season is played during two calendar years, however, given an annual salary in the U.S. of $3,400,000 we can estimate that he would have to pay $1,165,284 in federal income taxes. That is about the same amount of tax as the tax paid by 143 median high school teachers, 163 median police officers, or 231 median fire fighters. After paying the IRS, he would have $2,234,716 left over. However, he may still have to use some of that money to pay state or city taxes as well.

About the author

Author: Mark McCracken is a corporate trainer and author living in Higashi Osaka, Japan. He is the author of thousands of online articles as well as the Business English textbook, "25 Business Skills in English".